Rachel Leishman

Published Aug 11, 2026, 12:01 PM EDT

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**Willem Dafoe **is one of our most prolific actors. The ***Spider-Man ***star has taken on big superhero franchises, worked with visionary directors like **Robert Eggers **in films like ***The Lighthouse, ***and been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for his work as Sergeant Elias in the 1986 film Platoon. Now, he’s working with director and writer **Miguel Ángel Jiménez **on his new film, The Birthday Party, which is in theaters and on demand and digital on August 14. To celebrate the film’s release, Collider is thrilled to bring you an exclusive look at a scene between Dafoe and **Vic Carmen Sonne. **

*The Birthday Party *is described as follows: “The story is set in the late 1970s somewhere in the Mediterranean, where Marcos Timoleon, an Aristotle Onassis-like tycoon, is throwing a lavish, extravagant birthday party for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, on his exclusive private island. The party is a perfect excuse for various people in his life to approach him with their own agendas. But Marcos, who is used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him at whatever cost, is also secretly plotting a big decision on his daughter’s behalf. Sofia, however, has come to share some important news of her own. As guests start pouring in and night falls, the party grows rowdier and more decadent, while the inevitable clash between Marcos and Sofia reaches a heartbreaking climax.”

Written by Jiménez along with **Giorgos Karnavas and Nicos Panagiotopoulos, **the film is based on a novel of the same name by Panos Karnezis. Our exclusive sneak peek features Sofia (Conne) and her father Marcus (Dafoe) talking about Sofia’s pregnancy and what Marcus wants her to do with the baby. He loudly states that he will not die without his house in order, and the brief scene shows the tycoon controlling his family the best he can. The film also stars Joe Cole, Emma Suárez, and Carlos Cuevas.

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dafoe has constantly reinvented himself as a performer. Whether it be in Yorgos Lanthimos’ ***Poor Things ***or movies like Mary Harron’s take on American Psycho, you never really know what kind of Dafoe performance you’re going to get. From the scene we have for The Birthday Party, this does seem like one of the more terrifying Dafoe performances because he’s a man who wants control of the women in his life, and what’s more frightening than that?

You can see *The Birthday Party *in theaters, on demand, and on digital on August 14. Stay tuned at Collider for more.